Master Keaton, Vol. 1

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By Naoki Urasawa, Hokusei Katsushika, and Takashi Nagasaki. Released in Japan by Shogakukan, serialized in the magazine Big Comic Original. Released in North America by Viz Media.

A long awaited release on these shores, this is the sort of title that you’d have expected to be licensed back in the old Viz days of the early to mid 90s, filled with Crying Freeman and Mai the Psychic Girl. The series had an anime in the 1990s, but by then the fashion for seinen had passed, and it’s taken a resurgence, helped by the cult popularity of 20th Century Boys and Monster, to see the series out here at last as a deluxe Signature edition. There’s also some question over the actual creation. When it came out in the late 80s, it was credited to Katsushika as the writer and Urasawa as the artist. After Katsushika’s death, Urasawa claimed that they’d fought early in the series, and from that point Urasawa did the story himself, a viewpoint which has led to some criticism. Also, the third author on the cover is the writer for the CURRENT Master Keaton revival, which started in 2012, and which… isn’t this. (As with many Signature releases of older works, this is a release of the Japanese re-release, which may have updated art/storylines.)

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What is this, then? It’s been called “Indiana Jones manga”, but I’d compare it to another 80s icon, MacGyver. Taichi Keaton is a former SAS soldier turned freelance insurance investigator for Lloyd’s of London. He looks into wrongful death claims, art forgeries, and archaeological digs, all the while finding trouble and managing to maneuver his way out of it by virtue of his amazing survival skills. Sadly, he’s not nearly so competent in his personal live, being divorced and having a teenage daughter, Yuriko, who seems to find her father admirable and aggravating in equal measures.

I understand her frustration. Keaton is a man who it’s easy to admire but hard to like. His lax personality was highly popular at the time, and makes a nice change from, say, Golgo 13 (a series Katsushika also wrote for) or Crying Freeman. These days I think a reader might find it trying, especially his obsession with his ex-wife getting together with someone else (we never see the wife, and actually it occurs to me that Yuriko may have made the whole thing up to attempt to spur him into action). Later in the volume we see Keaton’s father, whose name he disavows (he takes his mother’s last name), and he’s also an eccentric, frustrating individual, who Keaton probably takes after more than he’d like. Keaton as a man seems mostly half-baked and half-hearted.

The series is on firmer ground with the mystery stories, which much of the time turn into spy stories. Master Keaton began in 1988, at the tail end of the Cold War, but feels more like an early 80s tale, with the Communists still exerting their hold behind the Iron Curtain. I wonder if we’ll see that change as the series went on – it lasted till 1994. The first few chapters are not fleshed out enough – Keaton is the sort of story that requires a bit of room to breathe, particularly with all the exposition, and it’s no surprise that it’s the multi-chapter works that are the best in the volume.

Master Keaton, in the end, is classic seinen. If I said this was a mystery series in Big Comic Original in the late 80s, the well-read manga fan would likely be able to predict precisely the types of stories you’d see here. But it’s very well-told, as expected from Urasawa, and when he’s not getting involved in personal business, Keaton makes an excellent investigator. I’ll definitely be picking up more.

Sword Art Online, Vol. 3: Fairy Dance

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By Reki Kawahara and abec. Released in Japan by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen Press.

The novels are still running a bit behind the manga here in the West, so much of this review will be discussing how the light novel differs from the first two volumes of the manga that I’ve already reviewed. They mostly hit similar notes – Suguha’s crush on her brother is in full force, Asuna is still trapped in a birdcage, and Sougo is an over-the-top villain – but the ability of prose to let you get inside the heads of its leads allows for a greater depth than the manga had, particularly with Kazuto and Asuna. There’s also some nice discussion of Kazuto’s family beyond his sister, as we see his working mother, who he apparently got his obsession with games from. That said, once Kazuto becomes Kirito, we’re back to this series’ raison d’être, which is watching the boy do awesome things.

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The contrast between Kazuto and his MMORPG self didn’t come across as much in the manga as it does here, and it may have been my favorite part of the book. Now that he’s not in Sword Art Online, we’re left with a young teenage boy who’s weaker than he’s been the past two years, unable to decide what to do with his life, and with the one thing he cherished more than anything – Asuna – still far away from him. After meeting Sugou, and hearing about Asuna’s arranged marriage, he almost completely falls apart, sounding nothing like the character we’ve known, not even after the death of Sachi in the previous volume. It’s only when he reached ALfheim Online, the successor to SAO, and can become Kirito again that things change. And change they do – Kirito was pretty confident in the first two books, but here he’s almost cocky, showing off his skills (ported over from SAO, for reasons unknown to him) and cleaning house.

As for Asuna, her POV also benefits the story. She goes through the same crisis that Kazuto did earlier in the book, being trapped with only the monstrous Sugou for company and not even being sure if her love is alive. Once Sugou attempts to break her will by saying he is (cartoon villains always seem to make this mistake), she gains new strength, and it’s immediately put to good use – her use of game mechanics and environment to find a way to escape her cage is brilliant, and shows that she’s more than just a prize waiting for Kirito to rescue her here. (Sugou also gets to be even more horrible here – the scenes of him touching her, trying to go far enough so that she’ll punch him and thus “justify” using his supposed mind control on her sooner, are true nightmare fuel.)

Suguha/Leafa is the new character here, and like the other two we enjoy getting inside her head. She’s startled at her brother’s sudden kendo skills, picked up by sheer muscle memory from his days in SAO. The family revelations, which he knew about but didn’t tell her about, also have thrown her off kilter, and that combined with the onset of puberty has led to her accepting that she has feelings for Kazuto – but she can see he’s clearly in love with Asuna. She’s very similar to her brother, and it’s no surprise that when she plays ALO in an attempt to understand what he enjoyed about it, she too got very good very fast and is one of the top players in the game.

If you hated the Fairy Dance arc of the anime, then reading the light novel will probably not change your minds. If you enjoyed aspects of it but felt it fell short, given this version a try. It may read like wish-fulfillment fanfic, but there’s nothing wrong with that if it interests the reader, and I’m still greatly enjoying Kirito, Asuna and Leafa’s adventures. This is a 2-part book, so in April we’ll find how things wrap up.

Is It Wrong To Try To Pick Up Girls In A Dungeon?, Vol. 1

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By Fujino Omori and Suzuhito Yasuda. Released in Japan as “Dungeon ni Deai o Motomeru no wa Machigatte Iru Darou ka?” by Softbank Creative. Released in North America by Yen On.

For those who see that title and roll their eyes, the commonly agreed on abbreviation, from the Japanese title, is ‘DanMachi’. We’ve seen a few of the cliched light novels with titles as long as their content in manga and anime format before, but this is really the first time we’ve seen one as a light novel. As you’d expect, the longer the title the more likely that this is a romantic harem comedy, and that’s true here. It’s also a fantasy, though, one closely connected to the world of role-playing games (though it’s not players trapped in a game, for once). I think that the fantasy gamers will likely find it easier to appreciate this title than the harem comedy fans, though both will find things to like and dislike. One thing I think everyone will agree on is that the cover blurb is pretty misleading: Bell stops being a ‘damsel in distress’ almost immediately.

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That is where we start, however. Bell is our narrator for most of the book, though it does switch off when the author wants to tell scenes without his presence to a third person style. He’s young and naive, wanting to become an adventurer in order to meet girls and get a harem, but he mostly wants that because this is what his grandfather (now deceased) taught him was the way of all things. In reality, he can’t catch a clue when it’s thrust in his face, really. The other protagonist is his sponsoring god, in this world where gods have come down to the real world and form gangs of adventurers to entertain themselves. Hestia has only one adventurer – Bell – but it’s clear that she just needs to mature. It’s also clear that she’s head over heels for Bell, and is somewhat frustrated at his lack of interest. As the book goes on we see more women – the big sister trying to convince Bell not to be stupid, the young waitress with an immediate crush on him, another goddess who wants him mostly to amuse herself – but it’s apparent from the start who the ‘lead girl’ is.

The fantasy aspect fares better, though I don’t really game so it’s possible I’m missing stuff. Bell fights increasingly tough monsters, and when he defeats them gets gems to exchange for money, or ‘drop items’ that might be useful. It honestly takes a little while to get used to the fact that this is meant to be a real world – adventurers have their ‘stats’ printed on their back in runes, for goodness’ sake. But the fights are well-written and go fast, and there’s a nice feeling of suspense to them. The book read very quickly and smoothly, which was nice, and lacks a lot of the self-important narrating we’ve seen in other books this year. There’s also a surprising lack of fanservice – surprising as the color artwork inside the front cover is filled with it. Hestia gets the nickname ‘loli big boobs’, which is unfortunate, but other than that the emphasis here is on the story for the most part.

I may have made this sound more interesting than it is – there’s nothing here that really gets me fired up for another volume. But it’s pleasant enough, and a nice quick read. Harem fans will be annoyed at the obliviousness of the hero and the possessiveness of the heroine, because they always are. Fantasy fans might be entertained by the ‘RPG in real life’ aspect, though, and may want to give it a shot. And fans of the Durarara!! light novels or the Yozakura Quartet manga will recognize the artist. It’s also available digitally, and an anime is due out soon.